Vurup is a team of animation students working together in Buenos Aires, who have created their first short film called Insert Coin. The students, who hail from Argentina, Mexico and Colombia, are Gabriel Fermanelli, Leonardo Campasso, Bruno Olguin, German De Vivero, and Luz Lazzaro. Their short is a good example of how to tell a story in under one minute, and there are creative moments of drawn character animation throughout the piece. Hopefully we’ll see more from them in the future.

We’ve highlighted the talented filmmakers at MAKE, the animation studio out of Minneapolis Minnesota, before. And as long as they keep making great little films, we will continue to point them out to you.

Here’s the latest short from the MAKE team: Fruitless Efforts: Fruit of the Womb. This cartoon highlights a day in the life of Apple, “an average fruit guy trying to hold a job, have friends and just live his life in peace like a normal apple.” It’s fast, funny and pretty cool lookin’. This short, which combines 3D and hand-drawn animation, was directed by Aaron Quist and Andrew Chesworth. See it here.

Pixar animator Jim Capobianco’s long awaited hand-drawn short film Leonardo will screen this weekend for Academy Award qualification. You can catch the short on Sept. 18th, 19th and 20th at 11:45AM and 12:25PM at Laemmle’s Sunset 5 in LA. Capobianco writes:

I may be there for the Sunday shows. The old fellow is showing with two other qualifying short films BIRTHDAY GIFT (animated) and AFTER TOMORROW (live action). I have no idea if they are any good or what they are about.

If you want to see LEO in glorious 35mm with a nice Dolby 5.1 sound then go check it out. And if you’re in the Academy tell your Academy pals to see it too and nominate it.

Check out the poster here or the trailer there.

We’ve mentioned Eddie White and Ari Gibson’s stylish short The Cat Piano on the Brew several times before. They’ve just posted the entire short online. Enjoy it below, and get more info about it at their studio website The People’s Republic of Animation.

WOW! A real rarity today. It’s A Nose, an animated short from 1966 directed and designed by Mordi Gerstein (who prior to this had worked at UPA). The film is based on a surreal piece of satire by Russian writer Nikolai Gogol, and was produced at Jack Zander’s NY studio Pelican Films. There’s some impressive bits of animation in the film, which shouldn’t be a surprise considering that Emery Hawkins and Jack Schnerk are credited as animators. Nowadays, Gerstein is illustrating children’s books, including the well-received The Man Who Walked Between the Towers.

(Thanks to Mordi’s son, Aram Gerstein, for posting the film onto YouTube.)

You’ll never look at an apple the same way again after Ecological Apple, an unsettling experimental piece by Swedish artist Andreas Soderberg. It’s standard time-lapse photography edited in After Effects with time remap and camera shakes.

Also appearing online are a number of time-lapse films, like the one below by Eric Spiegelman, that capture the fires happening in LA. Nature is clearly the most awesome special fx animator.

(Ecological Apple video via Kottke)

My Day is a short about personal space. It’s a third-year project by Irish animation student Eamonn O’Neill. It was made at IADT Dun Laoghaire. I like how he’s exploring the visual possibilities in a largely dialogue-driven concept.

JibJab production designer Ian Worrel has posted his Cal Arts thesis film. Preliminary sketches and design elements are posted here.